Alum Spotlight: Meet Writer, Translator, and Fulbright Recipient Jennifer Shyue (XXVIII)

Growing up in Brooklyn’s Borough Park, writer and translator Jennifer Shyue (XXVIII), already lived between languages even if she hadn’t realized it yet. Before entering Prep for Prep, she attended a bilingual elementary school in the Lower East Side that offered Chinese language classes after school every day. “I think my interest in languages came from an interest in words more fundamentally. I was always a huge reader and dabbled in writing my own novel when I was a kid. The things that words can do and the things that they can do in different languages were always really fascinating to me.” 

It was in her Preparatory Component Latin classes that she began looking at the written word in new ways. “Growing up bilingual is its own kind of engagement with language and translation, but I think my Prep Latin classes might be the first place I translated the written word. My first creative writing classes were at Poly Prep, and my first literary translation workshops were at Princeton. Prep for Prep was the seed that made everything possible.” She would go on to earn her MFA in Translation from the University of Iowa.

When Jennifer arrived at Princeton, she wasn’t sure what she was going to study. “Comparative literature wasn’t even on my radar. I didn’t even know what it was until I went to an open house. My mother always wanted me to be pre-med, but I always knew my passion was in language, and letters, and literature.” Through a project for a translation course, Jennifer discovered the Peruvian Chinese community. It would ultimately lead her to writer Julia Wong Kcomt’s work. “Diasporic identity or the body or parent/child relationships... A lot of her themes are also ones that resonate with my own obsessions as a reader, and that makes it extra rewarding. Translating her work is like having a close conversation with someone whose obsessions I  share.” 

Jennifer had previously spent time in Peru as part of Princeton’s Novogratz Bridge Year Program, but would return in 2019 as a Fulbright researcher. This was actually the second time Jennifer had applied for a Fulbright. In her final year of college, Jennifer applied for Fulbright funding but was not accepted into the program. While pursuing her MFA at the University of Iowa, she utilized their resources to improve her application and reapplied, and her tenacity paid off. “I was in Lima… to learn more about the city’s Chinese Peruvian community and work with Julia on translations of her work. I love getting to know big cities, and Lima is such a vibrant one. Though my time was cut a couple months short by the pandemic, I so appreciate the immersion in Lima’s art and sino diasporic spaces, as well as the friendships I formed. I’m really grateful for the people who took time to sit down with me and answer questions and share their perspectives and opinions.” For her own personal research, Jennifer also conducted an informal survey of boba tea spots in Lima.

Jennifer has since returned to New York and has much to look forward to. This December, she will publish a bilingual chapbook with Julia’s work and her translations through Ugly Duckling Presse. Though they have published individual works in literary magazines, this will be the first collection of Julia’s work published in the U.S. Jennifer also has forthcoming projects she is excited to share. “My translation of Japanese-Peruvian writer Augusto Higa Oshiro’s novella ‘The Illumination of Katzuo Nakamatsu’ should be out in the U.S. in the next couple years. The novella is Higa Oshiro’s masterpiece and will be, I think, an important contribution to our understanding of Asian American literature (‘American’ continentally defined). There’s another full-length poetry collection by Julia Wong Kcomt in the works, and I’m also seeking a home for a cheeky, profound, slyly political novel-in-verse I adore by the Cuban writer Legna Rodríguez Iglesias (the first chapter of which can be found in The Offing).”

Reflecting on the unique circumstances of the past year, Jennifer shared, “The pandemic has made it difficult to find the quiet room of one’s own that’s important for creative work. That said, I actually think turning to translation is a great way to unstopper creativity. It’s like doing a puzzle when the stories or ideas or images aren’t coming—when you're translating, all the stories, ideas, and images are already there, and you get the pleasure of puzzling over and playing with words. They say translation is fundamentally an act of deep reading, and I also think that’s true; I’ve learned so much about writing from lingering over other people’s words.” 

To learn more about Jennifer Shyue and her work, visit her website at shyue.co.